There were two pieces in the National Post today that were good news for the Liberal Green Shift.
They released a poll on the Green Shift and Jonathon Kay published a column endorsing carbon taxes.
First the poll.
The National Post spun the results as would be expected from them and I have seen a few counter-spins on Liblogs this afternoon but both The Post and the Libloggers have missed a very important point.
Three weeks after Stephane Dion released The Green Shift Plan the National Post felt it necessary to sponsor a poll specifically about it and that poll indicated that a full one-third of respondents knew about The Green Shift.
That's huge.
It is the fate of all Opposition Parties that they will largely be ignored and any announcements they make will be forgotten within days if not hours of the announcement. The fact The Green Shift Plan has remained in the consciousness of that proportion of poll respondents this long after its release is more than the Liberals could ever have hoped for.
Half the battle in selling something is having your target market be able to identify what you are selling. So the Liberals are off to a good start.
Although many Conservative supporters have been pointing with glee to this poll today, I am reasonably certain that the professionals in the PMO are not too happy about the results of this poll.
Oh yes, the last Opposition Leader who managed to keep one of his announcements in the consciousness of Canadians long after the announcement was Stephen Harper and the announcement of the Accountability Act.
Incidently, the Liberals have Stephen Harper to thank for this happy turn of events. If the "chess master" would have ignored The Green Shift announcement instead of going off on it, using some rather inflammatory language, the Plan would have been forgotten very quickly. So, I hope Liberals everywhere will extend their thanks to Mr. Harper for his assistance.
The second piece by Mr. Kay was the second piece of good news. Of course, he started off by stating Mr. Dion would lose the next election (Did anybody expect anything else?) but then he went on to endorse a carbon tax. He then ended his piece by stating he did not agree with the Liberal Carbon Tax proposal because, well, it was a liberal carbon tax proposal instead of a conservative carbon tax proposal.
After I had stopped laughing I realized that his column indicates more good news for the Liberal plan. Leaving aside his endorsement of one of the central features of the Liberal plan what is really significant is that pundits are talking about the Liberal Plan. Even the harshest critics of the plan and the Liberal Party find themselves talking about it instead of talking up the government. This is further proof that so far this summer the Liberals have taken control of the political agenda.
Again, Stephen Harper took control of the political agenda with the release of the Accountability Act and he rode that to victory.
There is still alot of time to go but if the Liberals can maintain the control of the agenda, that these two articles demonstrate, they have they will be in very good shape going into the Fall.
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